The Origin of the Internet

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 September 2017

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Just how did the Internet become the most powerful communications medium on the planet, and why does it seem to be an uncontrollable medium for good and bad? With no cross border regulation the internet can act as an incredible force for connecting people and supporting human rights and yet at the same time convey the most offensive material imaginable. It has become the most useful research tool on earth but also the most effective way of delivering threats to the security of governments, the health service and on a personal level our own identities.

In this series Aleks Krotoski unravels the complexity of the internet, meeting the people who really invented it, looking behind the myths and cultural constructs to explain what it actually is and how it came to exist outside of conventional regulation. We’ll ask whether the nature of the net itself really is cause for concern - and if so what can be done to reign in the negatives of the internet without restricting the positives?

In this first episode we go back to the days before the internet to look at the cultural and technological landscape from which it grew, and unravel some of the key moments - now lost in time and obscured by technology folklore, which mark when the internet lost its innocence.

Picture: Mechanical computer keyboard blurred, credit: OSchaumann/Getty

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
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0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds just before this
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0:34.4	My name's Linda Davies and I commission podcast for BBC Sounds.
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0:54.2	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories.
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1:15.4	slash podcasts.
1:17.0	I'm Alex Kratoski.
1:21.0	This is Discovery from the BBC World Service. He would eventually receive the National
1:26.8	Medal for Technology and co-found the most successful company in the world. But in 1971, Steve was up to no good.
1:36.0	One time I called the Pope. I got to the Vatican. I asked for the Pope.
	...

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